First of all, don't get fooled by the title or the description of the press release. There is no storm in this movie. I was expecting action sequences in the key of Korean movies like the drama-thriller ''Tidal Wave'' which takes place during a mega tsunami or the spy thriller ''Typhoon'' but ''Firestorm'' turns out to be a more conventional thriller. This movie may not be very unique but it's a quite entertaining two hours for fans of the action-thriller genre.

The story where a veteran police officer and his assistants face a notorious thief and his cruel gang is nothing new either but the movie includes a couple of side stories. Some people may say that these side stories are only hiding the weak main plot and rather distracting but I thought they were what made this movie a little bit better than just average. The relationship between a naive criminal who wants to leave his past behind and start all over again with his proud but sad girlfriend is really touching. This side story adds some emotional depth to the movie. The story of an undercover agent and his autistic daughter is also quite intense as it turns from a passionate story to the grisliest element of the entire movie which I found hard to digest but absolutely intriguing. The acting from the secondary actors is very good while the main actors Andy Lau and Hu Jun are not as outstanding.

An important element of this movie is obviously the fast-paced action sequences. Some of them are well filmed and really breathtaking. One can really see that these scenes were filmed by experts and that there is a solid budget behind the movie. I'm not a fan of CGI effects but the special and visual effects are bearable to well done in this movie. On the other side, some of these sequences are overused, repetitive and feel artificially stretched towards the end of the movie. Some of them are simply over the top even though these scenes are at least never becoming ridiculous slapstick elements as it's the case in several contemporary Hollywood blockbusters like ''A Good Day To Die Hard'' or ''Fast & Furious 6''. One really gets the impression that the action sequences and side stories try to hide the ordinary main plot which fails to come around with true surprises.

If you are feeling for a fast-paced and professionally shot action- thriller, you can't go wrong with this movie. Anybody who's expecting something more like a great plot, outstanding acting or revolutionary effects should watch another movie.

I appreciated the first two movies of the dystopian coming-of-age franchise that is a little bit too closely inspired by "Battle Royale" but this first part of the third and last instalment is a massive waste of time and a cheap attempt at grabbing some cash from the numerous fan-boys and especially fan-girls. In my opinion, both occasional viewers and faithful fans should ignore this release, read the novel instead, and come back to the cinema for the second part of the grand finale. This movie only prepares for the last part of the series, a little bit like "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1" but it's even worse.

Everything that I enjoyed about the entertaining first two releases is completely absent in this movie. The story has no tension at all and consists almost only of hollow dialogs. One could almost say that there is no real story. The rebels are trying to turn a few propaganda movies, the population is demonstrating against the Capitol and that's it. 

Instead of survival action, we get to see depressive and lengthy chamber play scenes in grey bunkers. The colourful and exciting locations are gone and replaced by dark concrete structures that make even the most functional Soviet cities look beautiful. The special effects in this movie are not even close to the breathtaking images from the first two parts. Even the soundtrack of the movie is a lot more generic than before. One of the worst parts of the movie was when main actress Jennifer Lawrence suddenly started to sing. It sent shivers down my spine but in a very negative way and it reminded me of some lyrics from an old Puddle of Mudd song: "I never wanna hear you sing, you sound just like a little kid." Jennifer Lawrence' vocal performance must be the worst I have ever witnessed in cinema. Nothing improved in this movie and everything that made the Hunger Games franchise so popular is gone.

Even the acting is a lot less convincing than in the first movies as it mostly feels numb and unreal. Julianne Moore as President Alma Coin is pale and not credible at all in her role as nobody would follow such an uncharismatic leader in real life. Philip Seymour Hoffman as Plutarch Heavensbee looks like an annoying and old guy who thinks he is funny and cool but happens to be only embarrassing and stupid as he acts like he was mentally retarded. Even the characters I appreciated in the first two movies seem like pale copies of their former selves. I was eager to see Woody Harrelsen in his unique role as Haymitch Abernathy again but he only has a very small role and feels like a completely different character all of a sudden. Elizabeth Banks as Effie Trinket is a lot less colourful, eccentric and sarcastic than before. I'm aware of the fact that the general mood of the movie is supposed to be darker and more mature but the acting hasn't become more credible but simply shallower. In an unfitting contrast to this, Jennifer Lawrence is simply overacting her role as Katniss Everdeen. Every five minutes, you see her crying in a corner of her bunker, exaggeratedly hobbling through some ruins and yelling at everybody and everything when she's not pleased with something. In the first fifteen or twenty minutes of the movie, this acting seems like a welcome change to the tame acting of the others but a few minutes later one gets the impression that the main character has not only become a lot less mature than before but that she is simply out of her mind and dealing with important mental problems. It's not realistic at all to count on a bipolar princess who acts less mature than a twelve-year old and who only cares about her lover even though this is one of the least credible cinematic love stories I have ever seen to lead a revolution. At some point, her cringe-worthy emotional outbursts become unintentionally funny and would rather fit into a slapstick comedy movie.

It was incredibly hard to sit through the entire movie. I kept believing as I was hoping for an explosive ending and the only interesting scene of the entire film takes indeed place in the last fifteen minutes but it isn't worth the wait either. Giving three points out of ten in here is still extremely generous. Instead of making me impatiently wait for the final chapter, I'm now seriously asking myself if I should not give up on the franchise. I really liked the first two movies but this one here is plain awful. As I said before, read the novel or a short synopsis but avoid this hollow flick at all costs. It's not worth spending money on it, it wouldn't even be worth watching it if it was for free. This movie is easily the biggest cinematic disappointment of the year.

"Rigor Mortis" is a slow-paced but intriguing atmospheric horror movie that honours both classic supernatural Hongkong cinema from the eighties and nineties and Japanese horror cinema of the nineties and the early years of the new millennium. The movie uses mythological elements from both cultures. To dig all these elements, it's suggested to get informed about the mythological background and watch this movie multiple times. You will realize that each character in the movie represents a different kind of ghost from Chinese mythology for example. You might also realize that the strange tall people with the umbrellas that seem to have a random cameo appearance in this movie are actually soul collectors using their umbrellas as traps. You could also see that the cook and the priest are both Taoist priests but while one uses his powers to help people and fight demons, the other uses the same powers for his own selfish acts and helps to awake and strengthen the demons. As you can see, this movie is filled with many lovely little details. If you are looking for explicit gore or an extremely creepy experience, you are at the wrong address.

Something that largely contributes to the atmosphere is the use of lights and shades, camera angles varying from wide angels to claustrophobic short cuts and many special effects that especially use colours very well. The CGI effects never look out of place and aren't overused as in many other contemporary Chinese films, especially action movies. In his directional debut, Juno Mak manages to keep the basis of solid traditional horror movies based on an atmospheric use of lights and sounds, on creepy settings in a dirty public housing tower with old- fashioned apartments and on a menacing score and more contemporary elements such as the use of vivid flashy colours contrasting with the dark settings, computer-animated demons that sometimes look exotically supernatural and at other times disturbingly realistic and slow-motion camera sequences that add a nightmarish touch to the movie.

Apart of its detailed background and its consistent gloomy atmosphere, the movie can actually convince with some interesting characters. Each important character in this movie has a tragic tale to tell and some sort of development. Some of the background stories are actually quite touching and mostly deal with loss in one way or the other. The acting is calm, grounded and actually realistic and a welcome change if compared to the usual hysterically screaming teenagers. There is not really one outstanding acting performance but each actor and actress does an above average effort in this film.

It's hard to talk about the plot itself as several individual fates and different stories end up leading to something bigger and a fatal last fight between some courageous apartment tenants and some evil creatures. The movie also contains some sort of twist or alternate story if you want to which is revealed in the last three minutes. This twist is nothing really surprising after all and maybe the only real weak point in here but you have to understand that what matters in this movie is not really the outcome of it but the way things unfold. The way between start and finish is much more intriguing than the short overture and the grand finale themselves.

Now, if you care for atmospheric, mythological and slow-paced Asian horror cinema where you have to use your brain a little bit, this is definitely one of the most original movies in many years. If you are expecting the usual graphic shocker or scary supernatural film that solely wants to entertain, then you might actually dislike this film. Make sure to be familiar with Asian horror cinema before checking this movie out and you might enjoy your overall experience even more.

"Badges of Fury" is a short and fast paced action comedy movie which is certainly entertaining but overall disappointingly superficial.

The movie has a clever marketing strategy and includes many cameos by famous Chinese stars which include not only actors but also sportsmen for example. The longest cameo includes Jet Li who appears from time to time in this movie but doesn't really play an important role as the trailers might suggest. Even when he's there, his acting is wooden and lifeless and this could be considered his worst movie ever and I'm saying this as a big fan who has watched almost all of his movies. 

The film is also a parody of several Hongkong blockbusters from the last thirty years. Some of the insinuations are funny, for example when the main characters coincidentally capture a fashion icon who is behind online piracy acts. Most jokes are though either silly in a very childish way when we get to hear weird cartoon noises during some action scenes and overacted reactions by some of the characters. These ridiculous noises that seem to be taken off some old Looney Tunes episodes are overused in the first half of the movie and get completely dropped in the second part. Other jokes are simply sexual innuendos as we get to see many close-ups of Liu Yan's big breasts which get a lot of attention from female and male characters throughout the entire film. In general, men are mostly portrayed as dumb and superficial machos while women are mostly portrayed as silly sexual objects. I'm someone who likes to laugh a lot and this includes dirty and slapstick humour but this kind of silly rehashed comedy is nothing but embarrassing.

The action scenes are quite a mixed bag. Most of them are voluntarily exaggerated and feature massive CGI effects that kill any kind of charm that the parodied Hongkong classics have. Still, a few fighting scenes are well executed and filmed. They are filled with adrenaline and grace and use several interesting items as weapons. Even in his weakest movie, an elderly Jet Li can still show off his incredible talent and his acolyte Zhang Wen does a quite convincing job if one ignores the distracting slapstick moments during his fighting scenes. On the other side, the final fighting scene involving Jet Li is overlong and unspectacular.

The plot of this movie is extremely odd. The film starts with three random slapstick murders where the victims all die with a strange smile on their faces. The main suspect of the movie is a shy actress with good manners in her late twenties who hasn't got her breakthrough yet and who was engaged to each victim over the past years. Her sister soon becomes another important suspect as the superficial beauty with bad manners stole each of her sister's fiancés and sold insurances to them that made her a wealthy woman when they died. The unpredictable final twist of the movie where a rabbit gets pulled out of a hat is though so absurd that it even feels misplaced in a slapstick comedy flick. In between the morbidly amusing opening and the forced twist followed by a stereotypical happy ending, a few more plot lines are introduced only to justify many pointless cameo appearances. None of the few potentially promising ideas such as the relationship between the two investigating officers or the meeting of the criminal gang at the beginning of the movie are pushed further. Any kind of character development is completely absent in this hollow movie.

In the end, this movie is bearable because of a few gripping action scenes, a couple of acceptable jokes, a high number of cameos by famous actors and allusions to classics any Hongkong cinephile should know and the fact that one is impatiently waiting for the outcome of the story as the tension slightly increases even if the twist ends up being a huge letdown. Despite its obvious flaws, I was overall very well entertained by this dynamical movie for the reasons mentioned above. I would surely watch it again in a couple of years. Those who are mainly planning to watch this movie because they are expecting an explosive martial arts blockbuster with Jet Li should be careful though and rather rent the film for a reasonable price instead of buying it or going to the movies.

Servantes – Infant

December 17, 2014 in Reviews by Sebastian Kluth